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RE: Humor in technical writing

I've been writing job aids for a new university-wide financial software system (Banner). Because this is my first techwriting job, I was really quite clueless as to what was expected of me, so took a stab and created what I thought would be well-received by and genuinely helpful to the user (within the guidelines given, of course, which were sparse).

Because the content is pretty boring, I included humorous quotations in the footer of each page (I've pasted a random sampling below my name). I held my breath while my boss looked it over the first time, but he cracked up and really liked it. We had to make it through two more levels of review, but the content is sound and nobody complained about the humor.

And though the intent is to keep the user's brain from numbing on the job, it's been a heck of a lot of fun for me, too. By the way, I've hand-picked a quality collection of quotes (sorry) that I'd be happy to pass along.

Amy Probst
Detroit
me -at- amyprobst -dot- com

"It?s so hard to work in groups when you?re omnipotent."
?Q from Star Trek: TNG

"In America, anybody can be president. That?s one of the risks you take."
?Adlai Stevenson

"Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.?
?Albert Einstein

"A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five."
?Rusty Burress